


Waiting for Lightning

by RileyC



Category: DCU, World's Finest (Comics)
Genre: Cooking, M/M, Over Forty Romance, Romance, Second Chances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-08
Updated: 2012-09-08
Packaged: 2017-11-13 20:15:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time waits for no one, but once in awhile you get a second chance to get something right...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting for Lightning

**Author's Note:**

> Not a death!fic, but character deaths are mentioned.  
> Some of the inspiration for this was an older_not_dead prompt: Red Plaid. More inspiration is from a gorgeous collage by ctbn60 called "On the Farm." The painting over the mantlepiece can be seen here: http://www.surfaceandsurfacephotography.com/digitalartblog/2012/04/impressionistic-foggy-kansas-two-lane-highway/

 

  
  
Of all the diabolical adversaries Batman had faced over the years, none had ever come so close to making him want to break his vow never to take a life as this one. Yesterday this speckle-feathered, red-combed menace had charged at him and pecked him about the ankles when he had been dispatched to the henhouse to collect eggs. Now, barely past dawn, his newest nemesis strutted about the Kent farmyard and boastfully filled the early morning air with one ear-piercing cock-a-doodle-doo after another in what could only be taken for a direct challenge.  
  
Of course Clark would be displeased if the rooster met some dire fate. Clark called it Booster and probably considered it family. And Clark had lost too much family already. That’s how Bruce had wound up here, because Clark had asked his advice on what to do with the farm now that his folks were both gone.  
  
Well, no, not precisely how he had wound up _here_ , in Clark’s bed, his face buried in Clark’s pillow. That was all because of the chocolate cream pie last night…  
  


~*~

  
  
**To make graham cracker or cookie crumb crusts**  
Process the crackers or cookies as described above. Add  
sugar, spices and butter, cut into pieces, as specified by your  
recipe. Process until well combined.  
  
Bruce frowned and went back to the first paragraph:  
  
 **To make bread or cracker crumbs**  
Cut or break the bread or crackers into pieces and put them in  
the work bowl. Process continuously to as fine a texture as you  
want. For parsleyed or seasoned crumbs, chop parsley or  
other fresh herbs with the crumbs. For buttered crumbs,  
process until the dry crumbs are of the desired texture, then  
dribble melted butter through the small feed tube while the  
machine is running.  
  
He eyed the pile of Oreo halves, each one with the frosting scraped off. He eyed the food processor. He looked at Clark, busily assembling the rest of the ingredients. “How do you know when the texture’s right?” Granted, what he knew about the culinary arts could fit on a Post-It note but it seemed to him these instructions were somewhat lacking in specifics.  
  
Clark looked at him, something fondly exasperated in his expression, and sighed. He pushed at his glasses and rummaged through the drawers. When he found what he wanted, he presented them to Bruce: a plastic baggie and a rolling pin. “Put the cookies in the bag, seal it, and run the rolling pin over it until you’ve got crumbs.”  
  
Well, that sounded easy enough, albeit time consuming. As he dropped the cookies in the bag and sealed it, he said, “You could do this in under a minute.”  
  
“Technically, yes,” Clark said as he placed a saucepan on a burner and took a whisk to the contents. “I tend to wind up with chocolate powder, though.”  
  
Well that gave him some idea of the consistency they were going for, Bruce realized and eased up a bit on the rolling pin. “I could also point out that you could probably buy one of these at the store.”  
  
“You could.” Clark removed the saucepan from the burner and poured the bubbling mixture into a large mixing bowl. “Store bought’s never as good, though.”  
  
Bruce glanced at the cookbook propped open on the counter. No glossy presentation put together by anyone named Stewart, Ray, or Batali, this was a scrapbook that had been painstakingly assembled over the years by Martha Kent and filled with all her best recipes, with pictures and stories about them. The finest, five-star restaurants in Gotham, Metropolis, and Paris couldn’t hold a candle to that for Clark; certainly nothing store bought stood a chance. Bruce felt the same way about Alfred’s cooking.  
  
“Now what?” he asked as he set the rolling pin aside. The crumbs looked done to him.  
  
Clark covered the bowl of chocolate filling with plastic and put it in the refrigerator to chill, and came over to check the crumbs. “Get the pie pan.” He pointed. “Now pour the crumbs in the pan and press them down until everything feels firm and even.”  
  
“I think we have too many crumbs,” Bruce said as he spread them out along the bottom of the pan.  
  
“We can use the extras to garnish the topping.”  
  
“Then just pour in the filling?”  
  
“No; bake the crust for about ten minutes,” Clark said as the oven dinged. “All warmed up. Are we ready?”  
  
“As we’ll ever be, I guess,” Bruce said and passed him the pie pan.  
  
“Looks good to me.” Clark beamed a smile at him and popped the pan in the oven and set the timer. “You just might get the hang of this cooking thing after all.”  
  
“That would put Alfred’s mind at ease. I think he worries I’ll end up surviving on canned soup and crackers in my doddering old age.”  
  
“You may be a lot of things, Bruce, but doddering will never be one of them.”  
  
“Easy for you to say,” Bruce grumbled. It was going on twenty years since he had put on the cowl ( _seventeen years, eight months, eleven days_ ) and there were days he felt every bit of it. He moved around now to the fireplace and added another log, the fire crackling up around it. The heat of its flames as it warmed his bones was especially welcome on a rainy, autumn night like this.  
  
The absence of a mirror over the mantelpiece met with his approval. As did the painting that hung there instead. Unexpectedly impressionistic, it showed a two-lane Kansas highway disappearing into a foggy horizon, bordered on each side by verdant farmland. The framed photographs arrayed along the mantelpiece, most of them of Clark, were entirely expected. If there was a trace of melancholy in his smile at that, it was all right. His parents would have taken an embarrassing quantity of pictures of him if they could have. Alfred had tried. One large, double frame with an antique bronze look, was of Jonathan and Martha Kent. Their wedding photo was on the left, flanked by one taken fifty years later to mark their golden anniversary. Jonathan had passed away two years later. Martha had followed him this past winter.  
  
The farm was quieter than it used to be. Nothing like the empty, aching hollowness of the Manor all those years ago, just…hushed and still where there had always been a bustle of activity, shouts and laughter before. He imagined echoes of those days lingered in the walls if you listened close enough. This farmhouse would have to stand abandoned for decades before all of the residual warmth had faded away. That’s why the boxes had been bothering him all day. Scattered around the living room, half-filled with books and keepsakes, the boxes sat like cardboard infiltrators, there to steal the past.  
  
It was none of his business really, but Bruce didn’t want Clark to pack away the past. He had a personal claim on some of those memories, after all. He had spent a considerable amount of time here over the years. Perfunctory at first, bringing Clark home to heal under the sun-filled Kansas sky, and then to check back and make sure his recovery was going well. The visits had grown longer and more intimate as the years passed. Framed snapshots of him with Clark or the boys commemorated that as well. There had been Thanksgivings and Christmases. On one particularly memorable visit, Dick and Tim had learned how to milk a goat. And when Bruce needed to get away to recharge and heal, the farm had been there to welcome him, too.  
  
 _“Clark was always bringing home something hurt and wild that needed a place to get well. First time he ever brought home a bat.”_  
  
Martha Kent had told him that, gentle affection in her voice and smile. She had shown him the pet cemetery out back for the ones who hadn’t made it. Each small grave was marked with a stone and engraved with a name and date. Clark had been inconsolable after every loss, she’d said, but sooner or later he would always come home with something else that needed mending. He might have objected to this inclusion among owls with broken wings and orphaned raccoons if he hadn’t been in dire need of the sanctuary offered here.  
  
He’d missed that safe haven. He missed a lot of things, he thought as he picked up a framed snapshot of him and Clark. The picture, snapped ten years ago, was an uncanny echo of today. The jeans and black turtleneck he wore now were a match to the ones in the photo, as were Clark’s faded jeans and red plaid shirt. One could almost suppose they had come full circle, just add some crow’s feet around his eyes and a sprinkle of gray to his hair. Bruce put the picture down, tactile memories so sharp for a moment. How soft that shirt had felt under his hands as he and Clark sat out on the front porch swing and necked after Jonathan and Martha went to bed. How Clark’s kisses had tasted of apple pie and cinnamon. It had been raining that night, too, but Bruce had barely noticed the autumn damp with Clark’s arms snug around him.  
  
He hadn’t felt that warm in years.  
  
“You’re quiet.” Clark came up behind him and looked over his shoulder. “Do you ever wonder what would have happened that night if that volcano hadn’t erupted in Iceland?”  
  
“Maybe a couple of times,” Bruce admitted, intensely aware of Clark. Aware in a way he hadn’t permitted himself to be in too long.  
  
A broad hand passed lightly over his hair. “Only a couple of times?”  
  
He shrugged. “Maybe a little more.” Maybe like a couple of thousand, but who was counting? He hesitated, bit his lip, decided to risk it. “What about you?”  
  
“At least a couple of times,” Clark said. There was something very like a smug and knowing note in Clark’s voice, but so filled with wry affection that Bruce couldn’t seem to mind. And Clark might have simply been caught up in a moment’s nostalgia--except the fingers that delicately tickled the nape of his neck felt like something more than a fond trip down memory lane. “Every time you stayed here, I’d lie awake in my room and wonder if you’d come to me, or try to work up the courage to go to you.”  
  
“Clark…” He had thought that was just him. He sighed as lips brushed the back of his neck. “Why did we break up, again?”  
  
“You were an idiot?”  
  
Bruce would have liked to protest but suspected he had only the flimsiest of legs to stand on. There had been something about priorities and how The Mission had to come first for both of them; how they had to give everything to that. And Bruce couldn’t speak for Clark (even though that was exactly what he had done) but he didn’t think there would be anything left over for relationships. He had, thankfully, stopped short of suggesting the best they could expect to have was some kind of ludicrous friends with benefits arrangement. Apparently his denial hadn’t run so deep as to let him imagine a bargain like could ever succeed; that he could steal one taste of Clark and pretend that could ever be enough? No, ‘idiot’ was almost too mild a word for what he had been back then.  
  
He turned to face Clark, prepared to be as upfront as possible now. “I’m not ready to hang up the cowl yet and there could still be times I put The Mission above everything else. Alfred and the boys haven’t said anything about me growing more mellow with age so you shouldn’t get your hopes about that. The only thing I can promise you is that I will, inevitably, find a way to screw this up.” He really could have done without Clark looking like it was everything he could do not to bust out laughing. “It’s not funny,” he grumbled and thumped the rock solid chest.  
  
“No. No, of course it isn’t,” Clark said, his featured composed into a look of patently false solemnity. He kissed the corner of Bruce’s mouth. “You’re sure that’s all your deep, dark secrets?”  
  
“Ahhh...” Damn, it was hard to concentrate while Clark was doing that—a touch here, a nuzzle there; he had forgotten that. “I hate getting old--”  
  
Lips brushed the fan of crow’s feet at his eye. “Bruce, you’re forty-two.”  
  
“—but I hate getting old without you even more.”  
  
“Bruce…” Clark drew back to look at him with a kind of wonder. “That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”  
  
He grimaced and looked away. “You should probably set your bar a little higher.”  
  
“My bar’s right where it needs to be.”  
  
Bruce shook his head and started to sense something inevitable in the air. “I’m not going to win this argument am I?”  
  
Clark tilted his head quizzically. “Do you really want to?”  
  
Did he? Did he want to become that shadow of himself that he sometimes glimpsed from the corner of his eye—reclusive and embittered by everything he had let slip through his fingers? Put that way, there was only one answer. “Not really, no,” he said. Since words sometimes tripped him up, though, he pulled Clark to him to say the rest with a kiss.  
  
Their first kiss had been clumsy, desperate, not a trace of finesse in sight. Driven less by romance than by the need to make sure the other was alive and _there_ when a battle under alien skies had left them battered and bloodied and too tired for words. Their last kiss hadn’t been at all remarkable at the time. Just a quick, oops-I-have-to-save-the-world-see-you-later kiss literally on the fly. Later had been too late, after they had both canceled several dates and Bruce had too much time to brood by himself. They never had kissed goodbye. If Bruce had anything to say about it, they never would, because something else he had forgotten was that kissing Clark like was like tasting lightning.

In fact, he would almost swear he could smell smoke right now.

“Bruce,” Clark carefully pulled back, “something’s burning.”

“Yes, me,” Bruce growled and dragged him back.

“No, Bruce, something’s really burning,” Clark insisted, a split second before the smoke alarm ear-splittingly went off.

They didn’t have a difficult time spotting the source of the problem. The acrid smoke that billowed up out of the oven was a dead giveaway.

Bruce coughed and opened windows and doors as Clark yanked the oven door open and hauled out the charred, smoldering pie crust. He dumped it in the sink and turned on the cold water tap. While Clark cleared the smoke out of the air with a blast of super breath, Bruce shut off the alarm. He couldn’t help but notice that, even in a purely domestic crisis, they worked in perfect unison. Thankfully, the only casualty was the pie crust and after Clark had closed the doors and windows, he joined Bruce at the sink to view the burnt and soggy remains.

“I would just like to point out that _I_ didn’t touch the oven.” Bruce wanted that on record.

“Well, maybe if you hadn’t been checking out my tonsils I would have noticed the oven timer go off.”

“Do Kryptonians have tonsils?”

“Don’t you know?”

“It’s been awhile. I may need a refresher course on a lot of your anatomy.” That would make an intriguing turnabout, a human performing invasive tests on an alien. Bruce smiled at the thought. Who knew, there might even be probing. More seriously, he gave Clark a long and considering look. “Is there anything I should know before things proceed any further?” All he needed was to be in the throes of passion only to discover some unexpected quirk of extraterrestrial biology.

“Well, now you mention it,” Clark looked a little uncomfortable, “I did once come across some information that male Kryptonians are a lot like seahorses.” He shrugged and looked away, embarrassed. “The data’s pretty sketchy and I never could pin down Jor-El on specifics.”

“You mean you…?” No, he would need some time to process this particular bombshell. “If we use protection,” he began, and wished he had thought to bring some with him, “would that be enou--” He stopped abruptly, eyes narrowed with sudden suspicion as he caught a twinkle of mischief in those oh so innocent blue eyes. “Son of a bitch.” Bruce popped him on the shoulder. “And everybody thinks you’re a goody two-shoes Boy Scout with no sense of humor.”

Laughter in his voice, Clark said, “You should have seen your face. And for your information, I _was_ a Boy Scout.”

“With a merit badge in smart ass, I’m sure.”

Still smiling, Clark reeled him in close. “I can promise you,” his voice dropped to a husky whisper that rumbled through Bruce, “that Kryptonians and Earthlings are entirely compatible.”

God, he loved it when Clark talked alien. He arched an eyebrow and asked, “You know this through extensive personal experience?” He wanted to match Clark’s playful tone but wasn’t entirely sure he pulled it off.

“Well, I don’t know about the extensive part,” Clark said, with an all too knowing look in his eyes. “I’ve never made love with a billionaire who dresses up like a bat.”

Bruce nodded and smoothed his hands along Clark’s shoulders. The red plaid flannel was every bit as soft and warm as he remembered. The shoulders were broad enough and strong enough to handle all of his baggage. “I can understand your difficulty in getting to that one. Not a lot of them around.”

“I have only come across one, now that you mention it.”

Bruce looped his arms around Clark’s neck. “And what unspeakable, Kryptonian rites would you perform upon this Earthling?”

Clark ran his hands along his sides, hiking the sweater up in the process. “There would be a lot of extensive, tactile exploration, of course.”

“Of course. To what purpose?” The extensive, tactile exploration along his ribs was about to verge upon ticklish.

“To catalog stimulation points and file them for future reference.”

“With the intent of ruthless exploitation?”

“Affirmative.” Clark kissed his ear, nibbled on it. “Would you like to be ruthlessly exploited, Mr. Wayne?”

Bruce buried his face in the crook of Clark’s neck to stifle his laughter. “I don’t think a merciless alien overlord would ask my permission, Clark.”

“I asked very firmly and left out the please.”

Bruce kissed his neck. “I guess you did.” He kissed some more, licked the pulse point, and felt a shudder run through Clark. “Would you demand reciprocation?” he asked silkily.

“Umm, absolutely. Recipro,” Clark moaned again, “cation would be required. Ah,” he swallowed, “so you don’t want to try the pie again?”

“Clark, I have never cared less about pie. Now, can we please go somewhere comfortable and ravish each other?”

“You said please.”

“You must be a good influence. Why are we floating?”

“Well if you want to take the slow way…”

“By all means, float away,” Bruce said, and tightened his hold as Clark wafted them upstairs.

~*~

Whenever Bruce had lain awake across the hall and imagined this scenario, he had seen himself silently letting himself into Clark’s room. He would stand there and look at Clark, asleep in a quilt-covered twin bed and bathed in the moonlight that glimmered through the window, its white curtains fluttering in a breeze. A creaky floorboard would give him away and Clark would sit up and look at him, hold out a hand, and Bruce would be inexorably drawn over there to join Clark beneath that warm, cozy quilt.

Almost none of those details were present in the current situation. The window was closed on this rainy night, droplets of water gliding along the glass. No moonlight, but the bedside lamp cast a soft, warm glow. There was a riot of color on the floor provided by a rag rug and there _was_ a warm, cozy quilt on the bed. It had been quite ludicrous, however, to suppose that Clark would have still been sleeping in a twin bed he likely outgrew at around age thirteen or fourteen. Bruce approved of the more accommodating size of this bed and only mourned the loss of the snug confines of that imagined twin for a second.

He did regret that there was no trace to be found of the erotic ninja skills he always possessed in those fantasies. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what to do, a veritable smorgasbord of options ran through his mind as he looked at Clark over by the window, it was that he couldn’t decide where to start. The hyperactive butterflies in his belly weren’t helping a lot, either.

Out of nowhere, Clark said, “Cat Grant wrote this piece last Valentine’s Day about a game called Mirror, Mirror.”

Bruce nodded slowly, not sure where this was going. “What about it?”

“Well, it’s this game couples can play to, you know, spice things up.”

Bruce nodded again as a destination began to take shape. “Or just to get things started?” he asked as the butterflies began to settle down.

“That too.”

Bruce licked his lips as anticipation took the place of turbulence. “How does it work?”

“Well, if I do this,” Clark slipped off his glasses and leaned in to brush his lips across Bruce’s, “you do it back to me.”

“Like this?” Head angled just right, he returned the feather-light kiss and upped the ante just a fraction as he caressed a thumb along Clark’s cheekbones.

“Umm, yes, like that.” Clark touched Bruce’s face, trailed his fingers along the column of Bruce’s throat, and dipped his head to kiss him there, lingering for a moment.

Bruce gasped, licked his lips, and brushed the back his hand across Clark’s neck to cup his chin. “So, no board or tokens?” he murmured as he tilted Clark’s head slightly and licked the hollow of his collarbone.

Clark shuddered. “N-no, no tokens.”

Bruce licked again, collecting his own data on Kryptonian stimulation points. _Clavicles—highly sensitive to oral stimulation._ Curious to see if tactile exploration was equally profound, he drew back and stroked his fingertips along both wings of Clark’s collarbone and observed the satisfactory response. “What about cards? Dice? No,” he frowned, “don’t say there’s dice involved.”

“Umm, no, no cards. Or dice.” Clark gave him an inquisitive look. “What’s wrong with dice?”

“Long, sordid story—and you’re at least two plays behind now.”

Clark arched an eyebrow. “Can’t have that, can we?” he murmured and looked Bruce over like he was a menu loaded with tempting appetizers. “I like long, sordid stories,” he said as he cupped Bruce’s face and nibbled along his throat. Thwarted by the collar of the turtleneck, he made a slight detour along Bruce’s jaw and exquisitely tormented the spot where jaw met ear. “I remember this always really got to you.”

“Still does.” Bruce slid his fingers into Clark’s hair to keep him there awhile.

“So?” Clark asked between delicate licks.

Bruce shivered and thought he might have whimpered. “Dice,” he had to swallow and concentrate to form words, “sex dice are evil. You roll them and think you’re going to get something like…like…”

“ _Nuzzle Ear_?” Clark suggested.

“Yes, like that.” Bruce made another embarrassing sound as Clark followed through on that. “Only what you actually get is _Suck Elbow_.” The irony was not lost on him. After a lifetime where he had been shot and stabbed and poisoned, broken almost every bone in his body, been tortured by Darkseid, Bane, and the Joker, the one thing that left him utterly defenseless and powerless to fight back was this: being nibbled and nuzzled to death by Clark.

“I’ve heard of that game,” Clark said as he finally relented and drew back.

“Let’s never play it,” Bruce said and tried to retrieve some kind of composure. Hadn’t he been the one with the upper hand just a little bit ago?

“Darn,” Clark pouted, “I was really looking forward to getting my elbow sucked.”

“Uh-huh, you only get to bamboozle me once, Kent.”

“What?” Clark gave him a blatantly false look—blatant because of the laughter Bruce could see bubbling up in his eyes. “I’ll have you know the elbow is a highly sensitive erogenous zone for Kryptonians.”

“Oh, I will map out every one of your highly sensitive Kryptonian erogenous zones, never fear,” Bruce purred as he marched him to the bed. “I may make it my new life’s project, in fact.”

Clark stretched out on the bed, hands cradled behind his head, and smiled up at him. “Will you bring all of your obsessive, painstaking detective skills to the task?”

“What to do you think?” Bruce took a couple of moments to just look at him. He was perfect; unmarked by time, by the violent life they led—unless you looked into his eyes at the right moment and glimpsed the weariness, a deep ache from the never ending battle. Sometimes Bruce wondered if that’s why his smiles were so bright, to keep everyone from seeing that pain.

No sorrow lit them now, only eager mischief and curiosity. Clark patted the space beside him. “Just a second,” Bruce said and turned off the bedside lamp before he settled on the bed beside him.

“Why did you do that?”

Vanity, he supposed, but didn’t want to say. “I am darkness, I am the night?”

“You are preposterous, you are a nut,” Clark returned in more than a passing imitation. He stretched over to turn the light back on. “I didn’t wait all these years not to see you when this happens, Bruce.”

“Not a lot to see,” Bruce muttered as he looked away, keenly mindful of the contrasts between them. Clark, all smooth perfection, and looking not one day older than when they had met all those years ago—and him, broken and glued back together more times than he could remember, gray hairs and crow’s feet. He looked good for his age but he cherished no illusion that anyone would mistake him for twenty-five. “My boyish charm isn’t what it used to be, Clark.”

“If I wanted boyish charm I’d date Dick. And before you go there—no, it never happened.”

“He might suit you better.”

“Nope. Only a grumpy old bat will do that.” Raised up on an elbow, Clark looked at him, tracing the fan of lines at his eyes so tenderly Bruce’s first instinct was to run away from it. “Shh,” Clark soothed him, his breath a warm caress, as if he could see the fight-or-flight panic that raced through Bruce for that split second. “I love these,” he touched the lines again, stroked his fingers through Bruce’s hair, “I love every strand of silver.” He brushed a kiss against Bruce’s temple. “I wish they could be mine.”

Bruce touched his lips. “I know. I know,” he whispered and pulled Clark to him for a kiss that promised all the years Bruce could give him. It wouldn’t be enough; it wouldn’t be forever—but it would be all that he had.

~*~

“Next time,” Bruce propped his chin on Clark’s naked shoulder, “I want you in front of the fire.” He trailed his mouth along Clark’s shoulder, tongue darting out to taste him, the salt of their sweat mingled. “I’ve wanted to see you naked, bathed in firelight, for a long time.”

“Umm hmm.” Clark sounded deliciously drowsy. “Wasn’t this the next time?”

“It _was_ the next time. Now there will be another one.” That made sense in his head anyway. He kissed the back of Clark’s neck, smoothed a hand over his hair, and flopped over on the mattress, superbly exhausted himself. He tucked himself into Clark, not yet ready for them to be entirely untangled.

“The floor might be a little hard.”

“We’ll find pillows and blankets.”

Clark kissed the top of his head. “Do you have a lot of these fantasies stored up?”

“You have no idea.” He idly stroked Clark’s chest and wondered when he would stop feeling astounded that he could do this now. “That Mirror, Mirror’s a good game.”

“Thought you’d like it.”

And if Clark sounded a bit smug, Bruce couldn’t begrudge it. Not when he felt incredibly self-satisfied himself. Not only was it a tremendous time-saver to have one’s lover demonstrate precisely what he wanted, but the erotic kick that resulted from watching Clark sensuously explore his own body had been completely unexpected in the most incredible way.

Eyes half-closed, he lazily replayed the moment. Remembered how everything had proceeded along a fairly predictable path with them undressing each other—Clark easily discarding the turtleneck while Bruce struggled with buttons and tried not to tear the red plaid, with no similar patience at all for the henley that lurked beneath. An echoed touch here or there, a mirrored touch of lips, of tongue. Inspiration had struck when Bruce had caught hold of Clark’s hand and pressed it to the base of Clark’s own throat. _”Show me how beautiful you are. Make me want you.”_ He had thought Clark would blush, would shy away from anything so bold, so fast—and Bruce would swoop in to show him just how desirable, how glorious he was.

No swooping had been required, he mused happily as he saw again the way Clark had met his challenge. Those broad, long-fingered hands had glided almost carelessly across flawless skin, silk over steel. Eyes closed, Clark might have been alone as he explored himself, oblivious to Bruce’s avid gaze. _Like that,_ Bruce had thought to himself as Clark’s fingers tickled along his inner thigh. _He likes to be touched like that._

The demonstration hadn’t gotten much further, and Bruce had not mimicked it all as yet. Clark’s fingers had scarcely curled around his shaft and stroked along to the tip before Bruce pounced. The triumphant grin Clark had flashed him had been entirely appropriate.

“I always underestimate you,” he murmured and turned his head to kiss Clark’s shoulder.

“That’s okay.” Clark pulled him closer. “You’re always more than I expect, too.”

He thought that over. “Is that a compliment?”

“Umm hmm.”

“Hmm.” He managed to burrow even closer. “We should probably take a shower in awhile.”

“Bath. Shower’s not working.”

A fresh wave of intrigue nudged at Bruce. “Tub big enough for two?”

“Could be. Want to see?”

“Mmm. In a minute.” There was no hurry and this was extraordinarily soothing, to rest in Clark’s arms and listen to the rain spatter against the glass outside. If he had ever been this warm and comfortable before he couldn’t remember it.

~*~

…Bruce smiled against the pillow and rolled over to bask in the quiet now that the rooster, assured of his victory, had finally given it a rest. He could hear Clark downstairs in the kitchen, fixing breakfast to judge by the smell of bacon that wafted on the air. If he waited here, Clark would probably bring up a tray and that would be fine…except that he didn’t want to wait even that short a span of time to see Clark again.

He slipped out of bed and reached for a robe—Clark’s, red plaid again—and put it on. The fabric warmed him against the morning chill. So did the idea of wearing something that normally enfolded Clark in its soft swaths.

They still hadn’t talked about the farm but Bruce had a feeling that would all sort itself out.

Downstairs, Clark looked over and smiled. “How are you at scrambled eggs?”

Bruce walked over, kissed his neck, and considered the basket of eggs set out. He thought he recognized them from his incursion into the henhouse yesterday. “I understand the basic principle.”

“Then how about you work on that while I tackle the pancakes?”

That sounded like an equitable arrangement.

He picked up a brown egg, cracked it against a bowl. He frowned. “Is there some kind of trick to not getting shells in the eggs?”

Clark sighed. "Here," he handed Bruce the whisk, "you stir the batter, I'll crack the eggs."

"Clockwise or--"

"You know, I _can_ beat you to death with a spatula."

Bruce smiled and got busy whisking.

-end-

 

======  
Absence of Fear - Jewel Kilcher

Inside my skin  
There is this space  
It twists and turns  
It bleeds and aches  
Inside my heart  
There's an empty room  
It's waiting for lightning  
It's waiting for you

I am wanting and  
I am needing you  
To be here  
Inside the absence  
Of fear

Muscle and sinew  
Velvet and stone  
This vessel is haunted  
It creaks and moans  
My bones call to you  
In a separate skin  
I'll make myself translucent  
To let you in

I am wanting and  
I am needing you  
To be here  
Inside the absence  
Of fear

There is the splendor of this  
Secret inside of me  
And it knows that you're no stranger  
You're my gravity  
My hands will adore you through all darkness  
And they will lay you out in moonlight  
And reinvent your name

I am wanting and  
I am needing you  
To be here  
I need you near  
Inside the absence  
Of fear


End file.
